How to remove a Google review, and what you're not allowed to do

If you want to know how to remove a Google review someone left on your business, here’s the short answer: you can’t delete it yourself. You can report it from your Business Profile if it breaks Google’s content policies, appeal once if Google says no, and reply to it in public whether it stays or goes. Pressuring a customer to take one down, or hiding the bad ones on your own website, is what the US and UK rules name, and what the CMA is investigating right now.

This guide covers what Google removes, how to report and appeal, fake reviews and extortion, replies, removal services and the legal line in the US, the UK and the EU. It ends on the reviews on your own site, because the same rules reach there too.

Can you remove a Google review?

If you’re reading this with the review open in another tab, here’s the bit you were hoping I wouldn’t say. Google’s Maps help puts it like this: You can’t contact someone who left an inappropriate review or directly delete someone else’s review. So can a business delete Google reviews? No. Only Google can, and only for a policy reason.

Can you remove Google reviews at all, then? Sometimes, through Google. Here’s what you’ve got:

1. Report it. You flag the review, pick the policy it breaks, and Google decides.
2. Appeal once, if Google finds no violation.
3. Reply in public, under the review. That one’s always open to you.

Wrote the review yourself? Here’s how to delete a Google review you left: in the Google Maps app, tap Contribute, View your profile, See all reviews, then More next to the review and Delete review. On a computer it’s Menu, Your contributions, Reviews. Everything below is for owners.

What Google will take down, and what it won’t

Google’s review policy lives on its page of prohibited and restricted content. These are the categories owners run into most:

Category	What it covers, in Google’s terms
Fake engagement	Content not based on a real experience, paid-for reviews, posts from many accounts by one person, posting on a competitor’s place to hurt it
Conflict of interest	Reviews from current or former staff, contractors, family, industry competitors
Harassment and hate speech	Threats, doxxing, content that demeans people for a protected characteristic
Offensive content	Attacks on people, deliberate provocation, unsubstantiated allegations of unethical or criminal behaviour
Personal information	Someone’s full name, face, financial or medical details posted without consent
Off-topic	General, political or social commentary, or personal rants not about an experience at the place
Obscenity, profanity, advertising, repetition	Swearing to offend, promotional links, the same post again and again

Read that table for what isn’t on it. A customer who says your delivery was late or your price too high is describing an experience, and the policy says so: We do allow content that describes negative experiences in a respectful manner.

The help page for owners is blunter: Do not report a review just because you disagree with it or dislike it.

Then there’s “fake”. To Google, a fake review isn’t based on a real experience. To an owner, “fake” often means “unfair”. A real customer on a bad day, writing something you think is wrong, isn’t fake. Someone who never bought from you, or a rival down the road, might be.

How to remove a Google review that breaks the rules: report it

If it fits a category above, you can report a Google review in two places.

The first is your Business Profile. Go to it, select Read reviews, select Report next to the review, choose the reason (Google’s examples are “Spam” or “Profanity”) and select Send report. In the Google Maps app it’s More, then Report review. Don’t tap “Not helpful” by mistake: that doesn’t report it, it only shows the review to fewer people.

The second is the Reviews Management Tool, where you follow up. Confirm your email, select your business, choose “Report a new review for removal”, then Report, a reason and Submit. Later, check the status:

• “Decision pending”: nobody has looked yet.
• “Report reviewed - no policy violation”: Google kept it. Now you can send your one-time appeal.
• “Escalated - check your email for updates”: the appeal is with Google, and the answer comes by email.

How long does it take? Google’s words: Review evaluation typically takes several days. The appeal sits in the same tool, under “Appeal eligible reviews”, for up to 10 reviews at once.

If the problem is the reviewer rather than one review, you can report their profile from the Google Maps app: Business, Reviews, the reviewer’s name, then More and Report.

Before you report, check your records for the name and note which policy it breaks. “No order under this name in two years” does more than “this is obviously my competitor”.

The build order, start to finish:

1. Read the review against Google’s policy categories. If it’s an honest bad experience, skip to step 5.
2. Report it with the reason that fits, not the one that sounds worst.
3. Wait for the status in the Reviews Management Tool.
4. If it comes back as no violation and you have new facts, appeal once and include them.
5. Reply in public, whatever happened.

Fake Google reviews and review attacks

Some fake Google reviews give themselves away. You might see:

• a burst of one-star reviews within a day or two, after months of quiet
• reviewers whose profiles have no other reviews, or reviews of places all over the world
• complaints about a product or service you don’t sell, or a visit on a day you were closed
• several reviews with the same odd wording

None of these proves anything alone. So how do you remove fake Google reviews? Report each one with the reason that fits, and keep the pattern in your notes for the appeal.

The worst version is extortion. Google describes it as a sudden increase in 1-star and 2-star reviews on your Google Business Profile, followed by someone demanding money, goods or services to remove them. In January 2026, WSMV reported on a Tennessee photographer who got a text offering to remove negative reviews for $100 each, and then the one-star reviews arrived. Google told the station: We’ve removed these fake reviews and suspended the accounts responsible.

Google has a separate route for this. Its first instruction is Do not engage with or pay the malicious individuals. Then:

1. Screenshot every message, with the date, time and sender showing.
2. Copy the link to each suspicious review, and note when they started.
3. Fill in Google’s merchant extortion report form and attach it all.

Extortion is also a crime, so tell the police as well. In the US, the FTC points people to ReportFraud.ftc.gov. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Action Fraud was replaced on 4 December 2025 by Report Fraud, at reportfraud.police.uk. In Scotland, call Police Scotland on 101.

When the review stays up: how to reply

Honest bad reviews stay up. If you came here to remove negative Google reviews that are true, your reply is the tool you’ve got: Business Profile, Read reviews, Reply, once your business is verified.

Google checks your reply against the same policies, usually within 10 minutes. It shows under the business name, not yours, and the reviewer is notified and can still change their review.

The reviewer reads your reply once. Everyone deciding whether to buy from you reads it after that, so write for them: short, calm, no argument. Google’s tips say the same, and add: Never share a reviewer’s private information or engage in personal attacks.

That one matters more than it sounds. “We checked your order from 3 March” puts their purchase history in public. So does a booking time or anything about their health. Leave it out, even when it proves your point. Order records are personal data too.

If you’d like a first draft, paste this into an assistant:

Here is a Google review of my business:

[paste the review]

1. Write a reply of under 80 words that thanks the reviewer, doesn't argue,
   doesn't mention any personal details about them or their order, and
   invites them to contact us at [email].
2. Then tell me whether the review appears to break any category of
   Google's Maps user-generated content policy (fake engagement, conflict
   of interest, harassment, hate speech, offensive content, personal
   information, off-topic, obscenity, advertising, repetitive content).
   Quote the category and the words in the review that fit it. If it
   doesn't break any category, say so plainly.

Read the draft before posting. The second answer is an opinion, not Google’s decision.

Google review removal services: what to know first

Search for Google review removal and you’ll find companies offering to do it, some only paid if the review comes down. They have the same report button and the same one appeal you do. Google only removes reviews that break its policies, for them as for you.

Pay-on-removal sounds safe. But a review that breaks the policy could have come down after your own free report, and one that doesn’t shouldn’t come down at all. If it does, how it happened is your problem too.

Methods have gone wrong before. A 2016 lawsuit alleged that lawyers sued “stooge defendants” to get court orders that were then sent to Google to de-index bad reviews.

And Google’s policy says merchants may not offer incentives in exchange for posting any review or revision or removal of a negative review. A service offering your customer a voucher to delete a review does that for you. Ask anyone you hire, in writing, how they get reviews removed.

What you can’t do to remove a Google review

Google’s policy is one rulebook. The law is another. If you think a review is defamatory, that’s a question for a lawyer where you are, and it’s worth asking before you send anyone anything.

United States: the FTC’s review rule

The FTC’s Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, took effect on 21 October 2024. Section 465.7 is about review suppression, and it has two halves.

The first covers anyone using an unfounded or groundless legal threat, a physical threat, intimidation, or a public false accusation to stop a review being written or to get it removed. “Take this down or my lawyers will be in touch”, with nothing behind it, is the conduct the rule names.

The second half is about your own site. A business can’t suggest that the reviews it shows represent most or all the reviews submitted when it’s holding some back because of their rating or negative sentiment. Filtering is fine when the same test applies to every review, such as abuse, someone else’s personal details or content that’s clearly false. Sorting is fine too, but the FTC’s Q&A warns that burying the negative ones could still be unfair or deceptive.

On 22 December 2025 FTC staff sent warning letters under the rule to 10 companies. The letters aren’t findings, but they set out the civil penalty: up to $53,088 per violation.

The older Consumer Review Fairness Act bars contract terms that restrict customers’ reviews or charge them a fee for one, so check your terms. The FTC’s page also says: it’s unlikely that a consumer’s assessment or opinion with which you disagree meets the “clearly false or misleading” standard.

United Kingdom: the DMCC Act and the CMA

Since 6 April 2025, paragraph 13 of Schedule 20 to the DMCC Act has banned publishing consumer reviews in a misleading way. The Act gives an example: failing to publish, or removing from publication, negative consumer reviews whilst publishing positive ones.

The CMA’s fake reviews guidance, CMA208, says traders shouldn’t block negative reviews through threats of harm or legal action, or make settling a complaint depend on no bad review. Offering a refund or gift card to change a review so it no longer says what happened is one of its examples of commissioning a fake review.

On 27 March 2026 the CMA opened five review investigations. One asks whether some one-star reviews, moderated by Feefo, were left off Autotrader’s platform and out of its star ratings. The CMA says it has not reached any conclusions about whether consumer law has been broken. The Autotrader case page was last updated on 28 September 2026: still open, next update winter 2026 to 2027. The CMA fines post covers what it has done with its new powers so far.

European Union: the Omnibus rules

Since 28 May 2022, EU consumer law has said that if you show reviews, information about whether and how the trader ensures that the published reviews originate from consumers who have actually used or purchased the product is material. Its banned list includes misrepresenting consumer reviews to promote products. The incentivized reviews post goes through all three rules in full.

	What you can’t do to get a review down	What it says about your own site’s reviews
US	Groundless legal threats, intimidation, knowingly or recklessly false accusations	Don’t imply you show most or all reviews while hiding some by rating
UK	Threats of harm or legal action, a refund that depends on no bad review	Don’t leave out negatives while publishing positives
EU	Misrepresenting reviews to promote products	Say whether and how you check that reviews come from buyers

Check your own site’s reviews from your phone

The filtering rules apply to your website too. The CMA’s guidance calls a business showing a review site’s ratings on its own pages a “second-party publisher”, and asks it to check that site’s policies. Small traders aren’t exempt. Where exactly the CMA draws the line for a widget, nobody can tell you yet: the Autotrader case is about one-star reviews that never appeared, and it hasn’t finished. Take your phone:

1. Open your homepage and two product pages. Look for a reviews widget, a star rating or testimonials.
2. Open the widget’s settings, or ask whoever installed it. Is it set to show only four and five stars? That’s the pattern the US and UK rules describe. Switch it to show every rating.
3. Compare the rating and the count on your site with your Google Business Profile. Do they match?
4. Open your reviews page, if you have one. Does it say how reviews are collected and how you check they come from customers?
5. Read your testimonials. Are any from staff, friends, family or people you paid or gave something to? Each of those needs a note next to it.
6. Read your terms and your review request emails. Anything that stops customers posting reviews, or ties a refund or a discount to the rating, needs to come out.

Peeky reads the public pages of your site, reviews widgets and testimonials included. For the US rule on fake, insider and suppressed reviews, the check is US-01. For the UK’s banned review practices, UK-13. For the EU’s line on unverified reviews and how you say you check them, EU-11. He writes down what a visitor is shown.

Questions people ask

Can a business delete Google reviews?

No. Google's help page is plain about it: you can't directly delete someone else's review. A business owner can report a review from the Business Profile, and Google removes it only if it breaks Google's content policies. If the report is turned down, there's one appeal. Either way, the owner can reply in public under the review.

How long does Google take to remove a reported review?

Google says review evaluation typically takes several days. You can follow it in the Reviews Management Tool, where the status reads Decision pending until someone has looked. If it comes back as no policy violation, you can send one appeal, and Google emails you the final result.

Can I delete a review I left on Google?

Yes. In the Google Maps app, tap Contribute, then View your profile, scroll to See all reviews, tap More next to the review and choose Delete review. On a computer it's Menu, Your contributions, Reviews. You can edit it instead, and the edit date then shows as the review's date.

Are Google reviews anonymous?

No. Google's help says all reviews are public and you can't add an anonymous review. Other people see the name on the reviewer's About me page, plus the other reviews, photos and videos that person added to Maps. Check that name against your records before you decide a reviewer was never a customer.

Is it legal to pay a company to remove Google reviews?

It depends on what the company does. The FTC's rule bars groundless legal threats, intimidation or knowingly false accusations used to get a review removed. Google bans offering a reviewer anything to remove or change a negative review. A service has only the same report button you do, so ask how it works before you pay.